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User blog:FedeTkd/Writing Guidelines for Aspiring Writers
Hi guys. I’m making this blog to give the new users or new potential writers some guidelines and advices about writing. I know I’m not an expert in the matter but I think I got more experience than many here and I really thought that giving some advices could be useful for some users here. I also believe the most experienced users here should do the same as I’m doing right now because I think you got your own experience which is different than mine and it’s great to have more than one opinion on this one. Of course, those who disagree with me and say “GTFO, you don’t know fucking shit about writing.” or something like that for whatever reason, I invite you to get out of these blog and stop wasting your time. Go. Goodbye. Be free. Have fun. Now, for those who stay, good for you guys. (Super thumbs up). Now, I think I’ll start with story and characters before moving on to my personal recommendations. Part of this will have my opinion, but I’ll try to leave it aside until the final part. Story Now, I think I’ll divide this area into two: * Stories set in a Non-Canon VRMMO: In this case, it’s important the setting of the game. For instance: Place and time, Parameters, Races, Combat, etc…Of course, you can’t just write everything in the first and second chapters. No. That’d be an overload of information and that chapter wouldn’t be a chapter but rather a text exposing about the VRMMO. You need to give the basics in the earliest chapters and then start building upon that on the upcoming chapters. *Stories set in a Canon VRMMO: Those who start here have an advantage. The VRMMO has already been quite well explained in the Light Novel (or Anime probably, since that’s probably the reason why you’re here in this wiki), therefore you don’t need to expose much here unless it’s relevant for the story. However, in this case, I do recommend you guys to search in SAO Wiki for true data about the VRMMO you’ll be working in. I’ve found some mistakes in some stories. Now, you’ll also need a plot and I mean and actual plot (I’m looking at you fans of just-tits-and-ass anime). Well, if you have ever been to school, you should know the parts of the plot: *Exposition: main relevant things about the story. *Rising Action: conflict. The struggle of the character or characters. *Climax: turning point. *Falling Action: path to solve the conflict, taking into consideration the climax. *Denouement: resolution of the conflict. Could be good, bad, etc. For more info, google plot. I’m certain. It’ll help you. Characters Characters are the most difficult aspect of the whole story and the most important one. A bad story can be “saved” because of its characters. Now, it’s not possible the other way around. How good a character is depends on how they’re explained or how they’re written. Now: what makes a good character? Is it guys with spiky hair? Is it girls with big tits? No. It’s their characterization, or else they’re just talking faces (Although, to be fair, the tits are a plus for the girl that’s for sure. lol). And I’m not talking about the MC alone. I’m talking about all characters, including antagonists. Of course, it’s quite difficult to develop every single character, but it’s necessary to characterize most of them, that’s for sure. Characters are essentially the soul of any story. I’m not talking about them MC alone here. I’m talking about all the characters in general. According to Wikipedia, characterization is the concept of creating characters for a narrative. It’s a literary element and may be employed in dramatic works of art or everyday conversation. There are two ways of doing this: *Direct or explicit characterization: The author literally tells the audience what a character is like. This may be done via the narrator, another character or by the character themselves. *Indirect or implicit characterization: The audience must infer for themselves what the character is like through the character’s thoughts, actions, speech (choice of words, way of talking), physical appearance, mannerisms and interaction with other characters, including other characters’ reactions to that particular person. Searching a bit for this blog, I found a site that read the following: “The 9 Ingredients of Character Development”. The nine were: Communication, Background Story, Appearance, Relationships, Ambition, Character Defect, Thoughts, Everyman-ness and Restrictions. I find this a good way for describing, but personally, I differ with the number. For me, they’re not 9. It’s just 4: *Communication, Relationships, Thoughts (Personality): We could basically sum up this three into one big aspect named “Personality”. It’s important to show this in the very first chapters you write, specially speaking about the MC. Remember: Character development is needed. The character needs to change as the story grows to resolve the conflict somehow (or not solving it at all). When the story finishes, the characters needs to be somehow different than how he started, result of the experiences he lived through the story. **Communication: how the character talks. What expressions he uses. Remember: much of the personality is reflected on how the character talks. **Relationships: how does the character relate to other characters? Is he a loner or a friendly guy? Etc.…It’s important to the character to have influences in other characters. **Thoughts: How is the internal dialogue of your character? How does your character deal with internal struggles or dilemmas? Etc.… *Restrictions, Character Defect (Humanization): your characters are humans. This means they have flaws. They’re not perfect. The character feels real if he has some defects so that the reader can see he is a human. Maybe they’re irrelevant to the story, but it’s important for them to have errors. This can be physical or personality-wise. That way the reader can be related more easily to the character. Also, having this balance between skills and flaws is the only way that you can appreciate the achievements of the character. If they’re perfect, their accomplishments aren’t accomplishments, because they just do anything in a whim. Likewise, if you have a character that is too weak, it’s going to be pretty boring. So yeah, Balance that. *Ambition: The characters goal. Their passions. What he’s trying to accomplish. Their reason to fight, to live, to be embarked on the specific journey you created. He could totally have more than one. Though the character needs the ambition to go forward, I believe he needs to have a personality aside this goal. If you removed that goal, they should be able to stand on their have a personality. It’s the job of the plot to make it difficult to achieve this objective and that’s what makes it interesting. *Background Story: backstory of the character. Personal experiences before the start of the story. Events that define and forge his/her personality. You should also show these little by little. *Appearance: this may be the least important ingredient to make your character a person to the reader, but you should still know it in your own mind. Not every character needs to be drop-dead gorgeous, by the way. Most people aren’t. Appearance is important for a character because it can somehow reflect his personality or give away backstory. Also Not considered: *Everyman-ness: How relatable a character can be? We could place this inside the second item “Humanization” and it’ll be the same. Important: if you put all aspects of the character together, they need to make sense and be logical. All four need to be related somehow. If you want an example, I'll use Edward Elric (MC of Full Metal Alchemist) as an example. Once Ed is introduced, we see a lot of his personality. He's a smart and skilled alchemist, but he is quick and easy to anger. He gets mad easily when people talk about his height and specially when he's called a pipsqueak. He's loves science and is a really curious guy and always wants to learn more about the world. He's got dislikes as well, he hates milk (probably the reason why he's short). He's got a great backstory along with his younger brother, Alphonse. They tried to bring back to life their mother but this resulted in the loss of his right arm and left leg. His objective through the story is to recover his lost limbs by finding the Philosopher's Stone. Along the journey, he finds himself in circumstances and meets characters that make him develop and grow as a character. Do you want a bad example? Ok. I tried to find a character I could use as an example so I didn’t offend anyone by using a liked character. After thinking for a while, I decided Kirito. In case you haven’t found out yet, Kirito isn’t such a great character. In case you like Kirito, well I’m sorry. Let me explain why: Kirito is an antisocial kid who began playing games to escape from his family and basically real life. Unlike most players, he goes solo in a universe where most players gather in groups to fight since it’s easier to survive that way. Kirito’s big problem is his that he’s a Gary Sue (male for Mary Sue). He is a wish-fulfilment character with basically no restrictions or limits. He has a higher level than most players, even though he fights solo and is capable of completing superhuman feats, not even possible by the system, because FUCK IT! He’s Kirito! And of course, as the series progresses, he develops he’s own Harem. This makes Kirito unrelatable and gives him no limits. Therefore, if we’re not able to see the Kirito’s limitations, we can’t really recognize his accomplishments. This also makes it impossible for us, readers (or watchers), to relate to him. - Now, this is the part where I explain why Kirito one of the two main characters of my fanfiction SAO: New Aincrad, otherwise I’d be a complete hypocrite. If you’re not interested, go to the section bellow, “Antagonist”. Now, I know what’s going through your mind right now: “Why did you choose Kirito as a main protagonist if you didn’t like him in the first place?” When I first watched SAO, I didn’t have this opinion. In fact, I loved it. That was a bit more than 2 years ago (by the time I’m making this edit). What happened? I grew up and I changed my mind. When I decided to write SAO: NA, I didn’t think Kirito was a bad character. Now, I look back and see this big flaw, among others. Now, the Kirito in SAO: NA is different than anything you’ve seen in the Anime or the LN. He is a leader of his own guild fighting in the Great Aincrad War. There is no Harem. Here, Kirito gets his own tweak in his personality to adapt him to this story. He’s still one of the strongest characters, but you have some powerful antagonists as well, such as Hao and Mordread, and the large armies behind them. This gives him some challenge to accomplish his objective and win the war. - Antagonist I’ll be using the word Antagonist because I think it’s better than saying villain or just “bad guy”. For instance, L from Death Note is an Antagonist because he stands on the way of our Protagonist, Kira/Light Yagami. However, would you call L a villain? I don’t think so. Now, an antagonist takes a special place because he “steals” the spotlight from the MC. Your Main Antagonist follows the exact same parameters I just described for characters. You never want your antagonist to be this lower tier villain who does evil just for the sake of doing evil, like a bad guy from any TV-shows for young children (for instance, Power Rangers). In short, you need to develop this guy as well. That means you'll have to use the for character parameters I just describe (Personality, Humanization, Objective and Background). The best villains do four important things #'Attack the protagonist's greatest weakness': a protagonist and his (or her) story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them. This means an antagonist must be powerful. BUT, "power" can be adapted to the context. It does not always mean be strong enough, it means be exceptionally good at doing something. #'Pressure the protagonist into difficult choices': true character is revealed when in the choices a human being makes under pressure. The deeper the pressure, the greater the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature. So, in any story, the antagonist must press a the main character to make difficult choices. #'Compete for the same goal as the protagonist': it is only by competing for the same goal that the hero and his opponent are forced to come in direct conflict, and to do so again and again throughout the story. This makes sure that your antagonist is the right one for your protagonist. #'Impact on the protagonist': lastly, the antagonist must leave an impact on the protagonist somehow. When the MC finishes his journey, he must be someone different than who he was at the beginning of it (character development), thanks to the experiences he has lived. I can think of no better example for a good antagonist than the Joker, from 2008 film, The Dark Knight. As the antithesis of Batman in personality and appearance, the Joker is considered by critics to be his perfect adversary and a great character, not only for the actor's amazing performance, but rather because he does the four things I just wrote. Firstly, he is really good at attacking Batman's greatest weakness. Much of Batman's strength comes from his ability to intimidate his enemies, and also uses his great physical strength to complement. The joker nullifies these by creating situations that he can't solve by using the two. He can do this because he doesn't fear death. In fact, he wants Batman to kill him because the Joker knows that there's one thing Batman can't do: he does not kill. And this is Batman's greatest weakness, his moral code. This way, he puts pressure into our hero by forcing him to make difficult decisions. First, the Joker wants Batman to turn himself in, and every day he doesn't, people would die. Batman refuses and puts up a fight, but the clown prince of crime proves to be too much for him, always one step ahead. The people of Gotham turn against the caped crusader, and he decides to turn himself in. Later on, Batman is forced to make the most revealing choice in the whole film: to chose between the lives of two people, one of the two being his childhood sweetheart. He chooses her, revealing what he is not willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Secondly, both characters also have their vision of what they want Gotham to be. Batman is fighting for hope, for Gotham City without crime, for law and order. And the Joker for the stark opposite. For watching the world burn around him. In short: chaos. They are both fighting for Gotham's soul. Lastly, the greater function of the Joker is to make Batman grow and change as a character. At the beginning of the movie, the World's Greatest Detective thinks that criminals are simple: they are just after money and that's it. However, when he encounters someone who isn't, and he learns not to underestimate his enemies and that his strengths can become weaknesses. He learns that alone he has limits, but with the right allies, he can overcome any challenge. In other words, Batman becomes wiser and his resolve deepens. And during the battle for Gotham's soul, he shows that he is willing to make the choices that no one else can. Because of the Joker, Batman becomes the Dark Knight. The Dark Knight shines as an example of what happens when the forces of antagonism grow from within the protagonist. To sum up, the Joker is an amazing antagonist because he has a profound impact on the story and its main protagonist. Personal recommendations I believe the best way to write this part is by small tips to you guys. This is strictly personal and it’s my pure opinion: *I believe many users find it easy to start in the very first day of SAO because we all already know what happened. Well, Do NOT do that. Why? For the exact same reason. Why would I want to read something I already know about?! Find a different way to start. Any way. But seriously, skip the very first day of SAO. *I think an important advice is to read. And not just the genre that you're trying to write, you need to read everything you can get your hands on. Every writer has something to teach your, being bad or wrong. And you have to go beyond writers from the wikia, because we're not professionals. Go, buy a book you like and read it. Once you finish it, repeat. *'Write'. Yeah, dumb advice, but write everyday or as frequently as you can. The more you write, the better you get. When you write, try to make the reader FEEL he is there with your character, living that scene alongside him/her. If he is feeling pain, I want you to feel it. If he is happy, I want you to feel it. If he is shocked, I want you to feel it. Good literature is the one which can transport your mind to another reality. *Start with a story set in SAO. That way, you can explore and learn more about the basics in writing. After one or two stories, you should move on and create your own universe, with your own characters and settings. That way, you'll be training those "literary muscles". *When you start writing your story, always have a general idea of where you want it to go. I generally start knowing the start, the end and a few plot-twists here and there. The rest is just filling the gaps between with character development and the plot moving forward. Of course, the end of the story can always be changed, as you change your mind. *Remember to have characters who move the story forward, rather than a story which moves the characters forward. *No character can be only good or only evil. Your characters are human, and therefore, complex. You can look in a history book and see that there were many good people that did terrible things and that there are also bad people who did good things. For instance, Hitler loved dogs and he was very kind with animals. All humans have in them to be angels and to be demons, the question here is the decisions we take. *Don’t rush things up. Take your time to write and to tell the story. Do it slowly. However, if your story is too slow, you'll will fail to grab the interest of the reader. Therefore, you need to balance this: Not too rushed, nor too slow. *Use reasonable time-jumps or time-skips. *Anime stuff - we're in a fanon wikia of an anime series, so you more than can use the typical stereotypes, tropes and cliches you see in anime. But I recommend not to, or at least, not fill your story with it. Also, if you're going to have tsunderes, yanderes, etc...build them right! Build the character so that it makes sense WHY he/she is like that. *Personally, I have the rule of uploading a chapter once it has more than 10 pages. However, I first had the rule of uploading it once it has more than 5. Try to have a rule like this. *Don't work on two separate FanFictions at the same time. You'll end up working in one more than the other. If you're certain you can, try. But it's quite difficult. *First-person writing (FPW) vs. Third-person writing (TPW): User: Ishimura_Elite and I always have that discussion of which is the best way of writing. Personally, I choose the latter. Why? Because this way, I think, it’s easier to characterize and develop other characters aside the MC. In first person you may get an good developed MC, but you have the risk of almost forgetting of the rest of the cast. To avoid this, you can use FPW and switch between your MC and the secondary characters or you can have no MC at all. **Switching between FPW and TPW: there are certain moments where the FPW fits really well. These moments are very specific and generally center on the MC. For instance: a dream sequence, a flashback or the epilogue/prologue. **If you’re going to use 1st person, use present tense. If you're going to use 3rd person, use past tense (otherwise, it will look like a script). *Try not to use Plot Devices. A plot device is a mean of advancing the plot. It’s often used to motivate characters, create urgency, resolve a difficulty, etc.... This can be contrasted with moving a story forward with dramatic technique; that is, by making things happen because characters take action for well-developed reasons. For instance: wikipedia:MacGuffin, wikipedia:Deus_Ex_Machina or wikipedia:Red_Herring. **I emphasize with one specific type of plot device: the Main Female Lead (MFL). Give your female lead something to do. Develop her, please! This was probably one of my biggest mistakes while writing PoA, if not the biggest. Guinevere is probably one of my favorite characters, but to be fair, her development is almost non-existent. I could say she exists mainly as a Plot Device for my MC Galant. Fortunately, I can see I’m not the only one who made this mistake. Reki Kawahara, writer of the SAO LN created several one-dimensional female characters that are mostly there because of Kirito. But I must criticize his development of Asuna above all of the other female characters (With exception of Sinon, who’s just awesome). DON’T MAKE THE FEMALE LEAD JUST SOMETHING FOR THE MC TO STICK HIS D*CK INTO. Seriously, I beg of you guys, develop your MFL. **“I will protect you all bullshit”. Don’t use that. Seriously. It’s overused. It’s in 99.99% of Shounen Anime. Just don’t. However, using it in an implicit way…that’s fine, at least for me. *Try not to use empathy in the background story of the character, it’s too cheap. Think about it for a while: “Oh, I feel bad for this guy, that means I like him!”…See…It doesn’t work that way. *Don’t chew more than what you can swallow: Don’t overload the story with underdeveloped or underused characters. Try to introduce characters that you know you can characterize and develop somehow. Characters who have influence to the plot. Otherwise, you’ll end up with characters that are more useless than Black Widow or Hawk-eye are for the Avengers. *You character shouldn't be OP. Why? Otherwise the player would be too perfect (winning fights out of a whim), and therefore inhuman and it'd be impossible for the reader to relate to him. So, yeah, take that into account while you write. Remember, the character needs restrictions to make him human. *Conventional wisdom for writers: never give two characters in the same story a name beginning with the same letter, otherwise readers could get confused (of course, you can't follow this rule if you have more than 26 characters). *Difference between edgy and dark/mature: a mature story is one that is plausible and can handle its themes well. It's all placement and tonal consistency. Mature stories aren't try-hards. It's themes feel well placed and dealt with in the story. Instead, edgy stories add stuff that seems misplaced or out of the context of the story. They are trying too hard to be dark, and end up with the exact opposite. These stories lack a sense of subtlety when dealing with controversial issues to attract attention and not for any higher purpose. For instance: Akame ga Kill is edgy because it constantly shoves the idea of the corrupt state down the audience's throat. Morality in the show is entirely black and white, which is frustratingly unrealistic. Berserk on the other hand has characters which constantly blur the boundary and question the presumed ideas of morality and ideology in order to be thought provoking and challenging ethically to the audience. *"The first draft of everything is shite." ~Ernest Hemingway. Enough said. *A good way of knowing what to do is knowing what NOT to do. The youtube channel: Terrible Writing Guidelines takes a sarcastic and funny aproach on things no writer should do. *My biggest and most important recommendation for you guys is to write when you really feel like it. Don’t see this as a responsibility. NO. See it as a hobby. Something you do for fun. Otherwise, you won’t be able to write properly and well, everything will fuck up. Well. I guess that’ll be all for now. If I change my mind, I’ll change something later, either adding information or removing. Category:Blog posts